THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION
1648-1794
The storm of persecution that had been brewing in the sixteenth century,
and which burst in all its fury by the middle of the seventeenth
century, was allayed but little by the rivers of blood that streamed
over the length and breadth of the Slavonic land. Half a million Jewish
victims were not sufficient to satisfy the followers of a religion of
love. They only whetted their insatiable appetite. The anarchy among the
Gentiles increased the misery of the Jews. The towns fell into the hands
of the Lithuanians, Poles, Russians, and Tatars successively, and it was
upon the Jews that the hounds of war were let loose at each defeat or
conquest. Determined to exterminate each other, they joined forces in
exterminating the Jews. When Bratzlav, for instance, was destroyed by
the Tatars, in 1479, more than four hundred of its six hundred Jewish
citizens were slain. When the city was attacked by the Cossacks in 1569,
the greater number of the plundered and murdered were Jews. The same
happened when Chmielnicki gained the upper hand in Bratzlav in 1648,
again when the Russians slaughtered all the inhabitants in 1664, and
when the Tatars plotted against their victorious enemy, Peter the
Great.[1] Swedish attacks without and popular uprisings within rendered
the Polish pan (dubbed among Jews poriz, rowdy or ruffian) as reckless
as he was irresponsible. The Jew became for him a sponge to be squeezed
for money, and a clown to contribute to his brutal amusements. The
subtle and baneful influence of the Jesuits succeeded, besides, in
introducing religion into politics and making the Jew the scapegoat for
the evils of both. The _Judaeus infidelis_ was the target of abuse and
persecution. It was only the fear that the Government's exchequer might
suffer that prevented his being turned into a veritable slave. His
condition, indeed, was worse than slavery; his life was worth less than
a beast's. It was frequently taken for the mere fun of it, and with
impunity. An overseer once ordered all Jewish mothers living on the
estate to climb to the tree-tops and leave their little ones below. He
then fired at the children, and when the women fell from the trees at
the horrible sight, he presented each with a piece of money, and thanked
them for the pleasure they had afforded him.[2]
In the cities, though the pan's excesses were bound to be somewhat
bridled there, the lot of the Jews was equally gloomy. They were treated
like outlaws, were forbidden to engage in all but a few branches of
trade or handicraft, or to live with Christians, or employ them as
servants. In 1720 they were prohibited to build new synagogues or even
repair the old ones. Sometimes the synagogues were locked "by order
of ..." until a stipulated amount of money bought permission to reopen
them. We of to-day can hardly imagine what pain a Jew of that time
experienced when he hastened to the house of God on one of the great
Holy Days only to find its doors closed by the police!
Their status was no better in Lithuania and Great Russia. The accession
of Ivan IV, the Terrible (1533-1584), dealt their former comparative
prosperity a blow from which it has not recovered to this day. As if to
remove the impression of liberalism made by his predecessor and
obliterate from memory his amicable relations with Doctor Leo, de
Guizolfi, and Chozi Kolos, this monster czar, with the fiendishness of a
Caligula, but lacking the accomplishments of his heathen prototype,
delighted to invent tortures for inoffensive Jews. He expelled them from
Moscow, and deprived them of the right of travel from place to place.
During his occupancy of Polotsk he ordered all Jews residing there
either to become converts to Greek Catholicism or choose between being
drowned in the Dwina and burnt at the stake.
But even the removal of the terrible czar and the dawn of the century of
reason and humanitarianism failed to effect a change for the better in
the condition of the Slavonic Jews. For a while it appeared as if the
Zeitgeist might penetrate even into Russo-Poland, and the Renaissance
and the Reformation would not pass over the eastern portion of Europe
without beneficent results. In Lithuania Calvinism threatened to oust
Catholicism, science and culture began to be pursued, and Jewish and
Gentile children attended the same schools. The successors of Ivan IV
were men of better breeding, and the praiseworthy attempts of Peter the
Great to introduce Western civilization are known to all.[3] But
Slavonic soil has never been susceptible to the elevating influences
that have transformed the rest of Europe. Every reformatory effort was
nipped in the bud. The lot of the Jews accordingly grew from bad to
worse. In 1727 they were expelled from the Ukraine and other provinces,
and they were recalled, "for the benefit of the citizens," only at the
instance of Apostol, the hetman of the very Cossacks that had massacred
them in 1648. Baruch Leibov was burned alive in St. Petersburg, in 1738,
for having dared "insult the Christian religion by building a synagogue
in the village of Zvyerovichi," an offence that was aggravated by the
suspicion that he had converted the Russian Captain Vosnitzin to
Judaism. The same fate was, in 1783, meted out to Moses, a Jewish
tailor, for refusing to accept Christianity, and in 1790 a Jew was
quartered in Grodno, though the king had declined to sign his death
warrant. In some places Jews had to contribute towards the maintenance
of churches, and in Slutsk the law, enacted there in 1766, remains
unrevoked to this day. Elizabeta Petrovna did not imitate Ivan III. When
she discovered that Sanchez, her physician, was of the Jewish
persuasion, she discharged him without notice, after eighteen years of
faithful service. Similarly, when the Livonian merchants remonstrated,
maintaining that the exclusion of Jews from their fairs was fraught with
disastrous consequences to the commerce of the country, she is reported
to have replied, "From the enemies of Christ I will not receive even a
benefit."[4]
But worse things were yet to come, the worst since Chmielnicki's
massacres. The bitterness of both Poles and Russians against the Jews
grew especially intense as the days of the rozbior, the Partition of
Poland, drew near (1794). The Poles, forgetting the many examples of
loyalty and self-sacrifice shown by Jews in times of peace and war,
suspected them of being treacherous and unreliable; while the Russians,
though denying the patriotism of their own Jews, persisted in the
accusation that Polish Jews spent money lavishly in fomenting rebellion
and anarchy. The pupils of the Jesuits found great delight in attacks
upon the Jews, which frequently culminated in riot and bloodshed and the
payment of money by Jews to Catholic institutions. "What appalling
spectacles," exclaims a Christian writer, "must we witness in the
capital [Warsaw] on solemn holidays. Students and even adults in noisy
mobs assault the Jews, and sometimes beat them with sticks. We have seen
a gang waylay a Jew, stop his horses, and strike him till he fell from
the wagon. How can we look with indifference on such a survival of
barbarism?" The commonest manifestations of hatred and superstition,
however, were, as in other countries, the charge that Jews were
magicians, using the black art to avenge themselves on their
persecutors, and that they used Christian blood for their observance of
the Passover. The latter crime, the imputing of which was sternly
prohibited by an edict of the liberal Bathory, in 1576, was so
frequently laid at their door, that in the short period of sixty years
(1700-1760) not less than twenty such accusations were brought against
them, ending each time in the massacre of Jews by infuriated mobs. Even
more shocking, if possible, was the frequent extermination of whole
communities by the brigand bands known as Haidamacks. They added the
"Massacre of Uman" (1768) to the Jewish calendar of misfortunes, the
most terrible slaughter, equalled, perhaps, only by that of Nemirov in
1648.[5]
That all this should have left a marked impression on the mentality and
intellectuality of the Jews, is little to be wondered at. The marvel is
that they should have maintained their superiority over their
surroundings, and continued to be a law-abiding and God-fearing people.
While among the Russians and Poles the nobles who learned to read or
write formed a rare exception, there was hardly one among the Jews, the
very lowliest of them, who could not read Hebrew, and even translate it
into the vernacular. Maimon tells us that in his early youth he became
the family tutor of "a miserable farmer in a still more miserable
village," who yet was ambitious of giving his children an education of
some kind.
Fortunately for the Jews of those times--says a writer--their
civilization was by far superior to that of the Christians. The
rabbi, though in no way inferior to the priest mentally, was
immeasurably above him morally. The students of the yeshibot,
despite their exclusive devotion to the study of the Talmud, yet
were better equipped for intellectual work, were of broader
minds and better manners, than the pupils of the Jesuits. And
the Jewish ba'ale battim, with an education as good as that of
the Gentile shlyakhta, had a more ennobling and elevating object
in life.[6]
It is remarkable how quickly they recuperated from the blows they
received. In 1648 thousands of people were killed, whole communities
exterminated, Volhynia, Podolia, and a great part of Lithuania utterly
ruined. In 1660, in those very places, we hear again of Jewish
settlements, with synagogues and schools and a system of education of
the kind described in the preceding chapter, and we hear of the Council
of Lithuania struggling to re-establish and cement the shattered
foundation of their self-government. Yet all their efforts improved the
demoralized condition of the country but little. As always in national
crises, the individual was sacrificed to the community, and deprived of
the few rights remaining to him. The kehillot became brutally
oppressive. There were no longer men of the stamp of Abraham Rapoport,
Solomon Luria, Mordecai Jaffe, and Meïr Katz, to put their feet on the
neck of tyranny. Without special permission no one could buy or sell, or
move from one place to another, or learn a trade or practice a
profession. Rabbinism became synonymous with rigorism, the coercion of
untold customs became unbearable, and the spirit of Judaism was lost in
a heap of innumerable rites. The Jew's every act had to be sanctioned by
religion. He knew of the outward world only from the heavy taxes he paid
in order to be allowed to exist, and from the bloody riots with which
his people was frequently visited.
What could result from such a state of affairs but poverty, material and
spiritual, with all the suffering it engenders? Those at the head of the
kehillot, being responsible solely to the Government, often had to
deliver the full tale of bricks like the Jewish overseers in Egypt,
though no straw was given to them. On one occasion Rabbi Mikel of Shkud
was arrested because the kahal could not pay the thousand gulden it
owed. In 1767, the whole kahal of Vilna went to Warsaw to protest
against intolerable taxation. Such protests were usually of little
avail. On the other hand, a few powerful families throve at the expense
of their oppressed coreligionists. This aroused a spirit of animosity
and a clamor for the abolition of the kahal institution. Jewish autonomy
was more and more encroached upon. Rabbinates were bought and sold, and
the aid of the Government was invoked in religious controversies. A
question regarding the preferable form of prayer was submitted to the
decision of Paul I. In 1777, Prince Radziwill decided who should
officiate as rabbi in so important a centre of Judaism as Vilna,[7] and
in 1804 the Government issued a "regulation" depriving the kahal of its
judicial functions altogether.
What was even more disastrous was the spiritual poverty of the masses.
Seldom have the awful warnings of the great lawgiver been fulfilled so
literally as during the eighteenth century:
And upon them that remain of you, I will send a faintness into
their hearts in the land of their enemies; and the sound of a
shaken leaf shall chase them; and they shall flee as fleeing
from a sword; and they shall fall, when none pursueth. And they
shall fall one upon another, as it were before a sword, when
none pursueth: and ye shall have no power to stand before your
enemies (Lev. 26: 36-37).
But the Lord shall give thee there a trembling heart, and
failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind. And thy life shall hang in
doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear day and night, and thou
shalt have none assurance of thy life (Deut. 29: 65-66).
Having learned from sad experience that there was no crime their foes
were incapable of perpetrating, they gave credence to every rumor as to
an established fact. A report that boys and girls were to be prohibited
from marrying before a certain age resulted in behalot (panics), during
which children of the tenderest ages were united as husband and wife
(1754, 1764, 1793). Mysticism became rampant. "Messiah" after "Messiah"
"revealed" himself as the one promised to redeem Israel from all his
troubles. Love of God began to be tinged with fear of the devil, and
incantations to take the place of religious belief. The _Zohar_ and
works full of superstition, such as the _Kab ha-Yashar_, _Midrash
Talpiyot_, and _Nishmat Hayyim_, the first studied by men, the others by
both sexes, but mostly by women, prepared their minds for all sorts of
mongrel beliefs. "In no land," says Tobias Cohn, "is the practice of
summoning up devils and spirits by means of the Cabbalistic abracadabra
so prevalent, and the belief in dreams and visions so strong, as in
Poland."[8] All this, though it strengthened religious fervor in some,
undermined it in others. Sects came into being, struggled, and, having
brought added misery upon their followers, disappeared. Jewish criminals
escaped justice by invoking the power of the Catholic priesthood and
promising to become converted to Christianity.[9] And now and then even
Talmudists left the fold, as, for instance, Carl Anton, the Courland
pupil of Eybeschütz, who became professor of Hebrew at Hamsted, and
wrote numerous works on Judaism. Others hoped to win the favor of the
Gentiles by preaching a mixture of Judaism and Catholicism. In many
places, especially in the Ukraine, the seat of learning that had
suffered most from the ravages of the Cossacks, the state of morals sank
very low, owing to the teaching of Jacob Querido, the self-proclaimed
son of the pseudo-Messiah Shabbataï Zebi, "that the sinfulness of the
world can be overcome only by a super-abundance of sin." This paved the
way for the last of the long list of Messiahs, Jacob (Yankev Leibovich)
Frank of Podolia. His experiences, adventures, and hairbreadth escapes,
his entire career, beginning with his return from his travels in Turkey,
through his conversion to Catholicism (1759), to the day of his death as
"Baron von Offenbach," would furnish material for a stirring drama. As
if to counteract this demoralizing tendency, a new sect, known as
Hasidim, originating in Lithuania and headed by Judah Hasid of Dubno and
Hayyim Malak, taught its devotees to hasten the advent of the Messiah by
doing penance for the sins of Israel. They were so firmly convinced of
the efficacy of fasts and prayers that they went to Jerusalem by
hundreds to witness the impending redemption (ab. 1706). But the ascetic
Hasidim and the epicurean Frankists were alike doomed to disappear or to
be swallowed up by a new Hasidism, combining the teachings and
aspirations of both, the sect founded by Israel Baal Shem, or Besht (ab.
1698-1759), and fully developed by Bar of Meseritz and Jacob Joseph of
Polonnoy.
[Illustration: ISAAC BÄR LEVINSOHN, 1788-1860]
Time was when all writers on the subject, usually Maskilim, thought it
their duty to cast a stone at Hasidism. They described it as a Chinese
wall shutting the Jews in and shutting the world out. It is becoming
more and more plainly recognized and admitted, that it was, in reality,
an attempt at reform rendered imperative by the tyranny of the kahal,
the rigorism of the rabbis, the superciliousness of the learned classes,
and the superstition of the masses. Its aim was to bring about a deep
psychologic improvement, to change not so much the belief as the
believer. It insisted on purity rather than profundity of thought.
Unable to remove the galling yoke, it gave strength to its wearers by
prohibiting sadness and asceticism, and emphasizing joy and fellowship
as important elements in the fabric of its theology.
Hasidism was thus a plant the seeds of which had been sown by the
various sects. Like the former Hasidim, or even the Assideans of nearly
two thousand years before, their latter-day namesakes rigidly adhered to
the laws of Levitical purification, and, to a certain extent, led a
communistic life. In addition they accepted, in a modified form, certain
customs and beliefs of the Catholic church that had been adopted by the
followers of Frank. The prayers to the saints (zaddikim), the conception
of faith as the fountain of salvation, even the belief in a trinity
consisting of the Godhead, the Shekinah, and the Holy Ghost, these and
other exotic doctrines introduced by the Cabbala took root and grew in
the vineyard of Hasidism.[10]
The founder of the sect has an interesting history. In his childhood he
gave no evidence of future greatness. His education was of a low order,
but his feeling heart and sympathetic soul won him the esteem of all
that knew him. The woods possessed the same charm for him as for
Wordsworth or Whitman. With the latter especially he seems to have much
in common. While a child, he absented himself frequently from the narrow
and noisy heder, and spent the day in the quiet of the neighboring
woods. When he grew up, he accepted the menial position of a school
usher. His office was to go from house to house, arouse the sleeping
children, dress them, and bring them to heder. But the time soon came
when humble and obscure Israel "revealed" himself to the world. Owing to
his tact and knowledge of human nature, combined with the conditions of
the times, his teachings spread rapidly. He was speedily crowned with
the glory of a "good name" (Baal Shem Tob), and in the end he was
immortalized.
From such a man we can expect only originality, not profundity. Indeed,
his whole life was a protest against the subtleties of the Talmudists
and the ceremonies, meaningless to him, which they introduced into
Judaism. His object was to remove the petrified rabbinical restrictions
(gezerot) and develop the emotional side of the Jew in their stead. He
was primarily a man of action, and had little love for the rabbis, their
passivity, world-weariness, and pride of intellect. It is said that when
he "overheard the sounds of eager, loud discussions issuing from a
rabbinical college, closing his ears with his hands, [he] declared that
it was such disputants who delayed the redemption of Israel from
captivity." Men like these, who study the Law for the sake of knowing,
not of feeling, cannot claim any merit for it. They deserve to be called
"Jewish devils." Only he is worthy of reward who is virtuous rather than
innocent, who does what he is afraid to do, who, as Jacob Joseph of
Polonnoy puts it, "acquires evil thoughts and converts them into holy
ones." No asceticism for him. All kinds of human feelings deserve our
respect, for it is not the body that feels but the soul, and the soul,
"being a part of God on high, cannot possibly have an absolutely bad
tendency." Men may not be heresy-hunters and fault-finders, for none is
free from heresy and faults himself: the face he brings to the mirror,
he finds reflected in it. Yea, even the followers of Abraham possess
evil propensities, and noble qualities frequently belong to the
disciples of Balaam himself.[11]
These democratic principles put the most ignorant Jew in Russia on an
equality with the erudite Lithuanian. No wonder that they obtained such
strong hold on the people of the Ukraine, the province shorn of all its
glory. Hasidism invaded Podolia and Volhynia, swept over Galicia and
Hungary, and found adherents even in many a large community in Western
Russia and Prussia. It brought cheer and happiness in its wake, and
rendered the unfortunate Jew forgetful of his misery. Gottlober
maintains that the inspiring melodies of the Hasidic hymns were largely
responsible for the spread of the movement, even as Moody attributed the
success of his revivals to the singing of Sankey. For, as Doctor
Schechter has it, "the Besht was a religious revivalist in the best
sense, full of burning faith in his God and his cause; convinced of the
value of his teaching and his truth."[12]
One province there was to which the Besht could not penetrate, at least
not without a long siege and great losses. In Lithuania the inroads of
Hasidism were strenuously opposed, and its advance disputed step by
step. The Lithuanian Jews, to whom the Talmud was as dear as ever, could
not countenance a movement sprung, as they believed, from the seed sown
by Shabbataï Zebi, an opponent of the Talmud, and by Jacob Frank, at
whose instigation the Bishop of Kamenetz ordered the Talmud to be
publicly burnt.[13]
The opponents (Mitnaggedim) of Hasidism were headed by a leader who was
as typical an exponent of the cause he espoused as the Besht was of his.
Among the students of Jewish literature since the close of the Talmud,
few have surpassed, or even equalled, Elijah of Vilna (1720-1797). Not
inappropriately he was called Gaon and Hasid, for in mental and moral
attainments he was unique in his generation. As the Besht was noted in
his early life for dulness and indifference, so Elijah was remarkable
for diligence and versatility. His life, like the Besht's, became the
nucleus of many wonderful tales, which his biographer narrates with
painstaking exactness. They present the picture of a man diametrically
different from Israel Baal Shem Tob. Every year, we are told, added to
the marvellous development of the young intellectual giant. When he was
six years old, none but Rabbi Moses Margolioth, the renowned Talmudist
and author, was competent enough to teach him. At seven, he worsted the
chief rabbi of his native city in a Talmudic discussion. At nine, there
was nothing in Jewish literature with which he was not familiar, and he
turned to other studies to satisfy his craving for knowledge. And at
thirteen, he was acknowledged by his fellows as the greatest of
Talmudists.[14] He had neither guide nor teacher. All unaided he
discovered the path of truth. He held neither a rabbinical nor any other
public office. He was as retiring as the Besht was aggressive.
Nevertheless his word was law, and his influence immense. The centenary
of his death (1897) was celebrated among all classes with the solemnity
which the memories of "men of God" inspire.[15]
Now, this Gaon of Vilna, or Hagra, was perhaps no less dissatisfied with
prevailing conditions than the Besht, but his remedy for them was as
different as the two personalities were unlike. He did not desire to
abolish the Talmud, but rather to render it more attractive, by making
its acquisition easier and putting its study on a scientific basis. Even
in Lithuania, the citadel of the Talmud, the development of Talmudic
learning had been hampered. In accordance with a Talmudic principle,
mankind is continually degenerating, not only physically, but morally
and mentally as well. It holds that if "the ancients were angels, we are
mere men; if they were but men, we are asses." This high regard for
antiquity produced a belief in the infallibility of the rabbis on the
part of the Mitnaggedim, similar to that in their zaddikim by the
Hasidim. No scholar of a later generation dared disagree with the
statement of a rabbi of a previous generation. But as authorities
sometimes conflict with each other, the Talmudists regarded it their
duty to reconcile them or to prove, in the words of the ancient sages,
that "these as well as those are the words of the living God."
Similarly, the popes declared that, despite their contradictions, the
Biblical translations of Sixtus V and Clement VIII were both correct.
It is true that Lithuanian Talmudists were not always the slaves of
authority which they ultimately became. A study of the works of the
early Slavonian rabbis, before and after Rabbi Polack, shows that they
were free from unhealthy awe of their predecessors, and sometimes were
audaciously independent. Neither Solomon Luria (Maharshal), Samuel Edels
(Maharsha), or Meïr Lublin (Maharam) refrained from criticising and
amending whenever they deemed it necessary. But in the course of time
the casuistic method, originally a mere pastime, became the approved
method of study, and produced what is known as pilpul. Scholars wasted
days and nights in heaping Ossa upon Pelion, in reconciling difficulties
which no logic could harmonize. Here the Gaon found the first and most
urgent need for reform. The Talmudists, he declared, were not
infallible. Every one may interpret the Mishnah in accordance with
reason, even if the interpretation be not in keeping with the
traditional meaning as construed by the Amoraim.[16]
His views on religion were equally liberal. The same process of
reasoning which, spun out to its logical conclusion, led to pilpul in
the schools, produced, when turned into the channel of religion, the
over-piety culminating in the _Shulhan 'Aruk_. This remarkable book,
with the euphonious name _The Ready Table_, prescribed enough
regulations to keep one busy from early morning till late at night. The
Jews found themselves bound hand and foot by ceremonial trammels and
weighted down by a burden of innumerable customs. The spirit of freedom
that had animated Slavonian Judaism during the Middle Ages had fled. The
breadth of view that had marked the decision of many of its rabbis was
gone.[17] Judaism was a mere mummy of its former self. Here, too, the
Gaon came to the rescue. Rightly or wrongly, he "established the
importance of Minhagim [religious ceremonies] according to their
antiquity or primitivism, regarding those which have originated since
the codification of the _Shulhan 'Aruk_ as not binding at all; those
which have been adopted since the Talmudic period to be subject to
change by common consent; while those of the Bible and in the Talmud
were to him fundamental and unalterable."[18]
But the Gaon's influence on the Haskalah movement by far surpassed his
influence on the study of the Talmud or on the ceremonials of the
synagogue. Many, in point of fact, regard him as the originator of the
movement. As he was the first to oppose the authority of the Talmudists,
so he was the first to inveigh against the educational system among the
Jews of his day and country. The mania for distinction in rabbinical
learning plunged the child into the mazes of Talmudic casuistry as soon
as he could read; frequently he had not read the Bible or studied the
rudiments of grammar. The Gaon insisted that every one should first
master the twenty-four books of the Bible, their etymology, prosody, and
syntax, then the six divisions of the Mishnah with the important
commentaries and the suggested emendations, and finally the Talmud in
general, without wasting much time on pilpul, which brings no practical
result. "These few lines," says a writer, "contain a more thorough
course of study than Wessely suggested in his _Words of Peace and
Truth_. Though they did not entirely change the system in vogue--for
great is the power of habit--they produced a wholesome effect, which was
visible in a short time among the people." Furthermore, the Gaon
exhorted the Talmudists to study secular science, since, "if one is
ignorant of the other sciences, one is a hundredfold more ignorant of
the sciences of the Torah, for the two are inseparably connected." He
set the example by writing, not only on the most important Hebrew books,
Biblical, Talmudic, and Cabbalistic, but also on algebra, geometry,
trigonometry, astronomy, and grammar.[19] And his example served as an
impetus and encouragement to the Maskilim in spreading knowledge among
their coreligionists.
Such was the man who led the crusade against the converts to Hasidism.
But even he could not stem the current. In their despair, the Lithuanian
Jews turned to their coreligionists in Germany, and implored their
assistance in eradicating, or at least suppressing, the threatened
invasion. The great learning and literary ability of the "divine
philosopher, Rabbi Moses ben Menahem" (Mendelssohn, 1729-1786), were
appealed to for help. Not a stone was left unturned to crush the new
sect (kat), so called. Volumes of the _Toledot Ya'akob Yosef_, in which
Rabbi Jacob Joseph of Polonnoy set forth the principles of the Besht,
were burnt in the market-place in Vilna. Intermarriage, social
intercourse of any kind, was prohibited between Hasidim and Mitnaggedim.
In Vilna, Grodno, Brest, Slutsk, Minsk, Pinsk, etc., the ban was hurled
against the dissenters by the most prominent rabbis. Israel was divided
into two hostile camps.[20] But soon everything was changed. Hasidim and
Mitnaggedim discovered that while they were fighting each other, a
common enemy was undermining the ground on which they stood. The
Haskalah was steadily drawing recruits from both, and it threatened
ultimately to become more dangerous to both than they were to each
other.
From the South had come the impulse of religious revivalism through the
followers of the Besht, and the North was showing signs of awakening
through the reforms of the Gaon. At the same time a ray of enlightenment
from the West pierced through the night. To make the regeneration of
Slavonic Judaism complete, the element of estheticism had to be added to
emotionalism and reason. From the warm South came Besht, from the
studious North Hagra, and Rambman (Mendelssohn) made his appearance from
the enlightened West. The triumvirate was complete.
Not that Mendelssohn ever visited or resided in Russo-Poland. But the
gentle, cultured little savant of Berlin, with whose lips, Carlyle tells
us, Socrates spoke like Socrates in German as in no other modern
language, "for his own character was Socratic," was at no period of his
life wholly cut off from influencing Slavonic Jews and from being
influenced by them. As a lad Mendelssohn was instructed by Israel Moses
Halevi of Zamoscz (ab. 1700-1772). This teacher of his, who is credited
with several inventions, and of whom Lessing says, in a letter to
Mendelssohn, that he was "one of the first to arouse a love for science
in the hearts of Jews," imbued him with love for philosophy. When
Mendelssohn emerged from obscurity, and, despite ill-health and
ignorance, attained culture and breeding, his associate, who was with
him the most important factor in German Haskalah, was the renowned
Naphtali, or Hartwig, Wessely, whose grandfather Joseph Reis had been
among the fugitives from the Cossack massacres in 1648. And when he
became famous, and took his place among the greatest of his age, he
still sought diversion and instruction among the Slavonian Jews, and
boasted of being a descendant of one of them, Moses Isserles of Cracow.
As formerly with the Talmud, the Haskalah seemed, at the time of
Mendelssohn, to be moving from the East westward, through the agency of
the Slavonic Jews pouring perennially into Germany. Positions, from the
lowly melammed's to the honorable chief rabbi's in prominent
communities, were filled almost exclusively by them. The cause of
Judaism seems to have been entrusted to them. Ezekiel Landau, whose
tactful intercession helped greatly to establish peace between the
Emden-Eybeschütz factions, was rabbi of Prague for almost forty years
(1755-1793); the equally prominent, but at first somewhat less liberal
Phinehas Horowitz was rabbi and dean in Frankfort-on-the-Main for over
thirty years (1771-1805); his brother Shmelke, regarded as a saint, was
chief rabbi of Moravia (1775). Another Horwitz, Aaron Halevi, was rabbi
of Berlin, one of those who favored Mendelssohn's translation of the
Pentateuch; while the cultured and profound Talmudist Raphael Hakohen,
whose grandson, Gabriel Riesser, became the greatest champion of Jewish
emancipation Germany has yet produced, was offered the rabbinate of
Berlin (1771). He declined the post, and finally became chief rabbi
(1776-1803) of the united congregations of Altona, Hamburg, and
Wandsbeck. It is also recorded that Samuel ben Avigdor, the last rabbi
of Vilna, held the rabbinate of Königsberg,[21] and there certainly must
have been many more who, because of their inferior positions, cannot be
so easily traced. Besides, Germany, as we have seen, was the common
fatherland of the greater part of both Slavonic and Teutonic Jews. It
never remained a _terra incognita_ to the former for any length of time.
Its proximity to Russia, the business relations between the Jews of the
two countries, intermarriage, and, with a few insignificant exceptions,
the identity of language, made the Jews of both countries come into
closer contact than was possible with any other Jews. For the studious,
Germany possessed the attraction which the "land of universities" exerts
upon seekers after knowledge the world over. To whom, indeed, could the
profound and abstruse speculations of Leibnitz and Kant make a stronger
appeal than to the Jew who had been initiated into metaphysical
abstractions from his very childhood? It is no wonder, then, that
immigration from Russo-Poland into Germany was constantly on the
increase, until, under Alexander II, the advancement of Russian
civilization put a stop in a measure to these roamings, to be resumed
under Alexander III and Nicholas II.
The Russo-Polish youth, therefore, found himself quite at home in the
country of Mendelssohn, and thither, in case of necessity, he would go.
In the eleventh century Jews had gone from Germany to Poland. In the
eighteenth they retraced their steps from Poland to Germany.
Outnumbering by far those who went there from choice or by invitation,
were those compelled to go in search of a livelihood. "When I reached
the age of twenty, peaceful and comfortable in my father's house, I
began to hope that henceforth I should pursue my studies uninterrupted.
But all at once my father lost his fortune, and I was forced to go
somewhere to provide for myself. So I became a melammed in Berlin." This
piece of autobiography in the preface to a Talmudic treatise by Reuben
of Zamoscz might have been written by many others, too. But there were
also the goodly number led thither by thirst for knowledge, whose
remarkable abilities attracted the admiration of Jew and Gentile alike.
Wessely the poet and Linda the mathematician more than once expressed
surprise at the amount of learning many of the poor immigrants were
found to possess.[22]
Among these immigrants were two who may justly be regarded as the
conducting medium through which the Haskalah currents were transmitted
from Germany to Russo-Poland: Solomon Dubno, the indefatigable laborer
in the province of Jewish science, and Solomon Maimon, the brilliant but
unfortunate philosopher, both of them teachers in the house of
Mendelssohn.
Solomon Dubno (1738-1813) was all his life a bee in search of flowers,
to turn their sweetness into honey. Having exhausted the knowledge of
his Volhynian instructors, he went to Galicia, where he became
proficient in Hebrew grammar and Biblical exegesis. Thence, attracted by
its rich collection of books, he left for Amsterdam, where he spent five
years in study and research. Finally he settled in Berlin, and earned a
livelihood by teaching among others the children of Mendelssohn. The
gentle disposition and profound learning of the Polish emigrant made a
favorable impression on the Berlin sage, who invited him to participate
in his translation of the Bible, which revolutionized the Judaism of the
nineteenth century more than the Septuagint that of the first century.
The result was the _Biur_ (commentary), which he, together with his
countryman, Aaron Yaroslav, also a teacher, wrote on several books of
the Bible. Comparatively few of Dubno's works have been published, but
judging from such as are known we may safely pronounce him a master of
the Massorah and a scholar of unusual attainments. Of his poems
Delitzsch says that they are "in the truest sense Hebrew in expression,
Biblical in imagery and subject-matter, medieval in rhyme and rhythm,
and in general genuinely Jewish in manner of treatment,"--laudation
which this exacting critic bestowed on no other Hebrew poet of his time.
It was mainly through the endeavors of Dubno that Mendelssohn's
Pentateuch, later regarded with suspicion, was everywhere bought and
studied eagerly.[23]
One better known to the outside world than Dubno, and who has engraved
his name forever on the history of theology and philosophy, was Solomon
Maimon (Nieszvicz, Lithuania, 1754--Niedersiegersdorf, Silesia, 1800).
In his famous autobiography is mirrored the lot of hundreds of his
countrymen who, like him, left their homes and hearths, their nearest
and dearest, and led a wretched and miserable existence, all because
they were anxious to be _ma'amike be-hakmah_ ("delvers in knowledge"),
as he himself might have said, and avail themselves of the opportunities
for acquiring the truth and wisdom unattainable in their own land.
But Maimon was doomed to suffer abroad even more than at home. He was
one of those unfortunates whose sufferings are regarded as
well-deserved. His exceptional ability was never to develop to its
fullest capacity. Great injustice has been done to him, not only by the
rabid orthodox, who denied him a grave in their cemetery, but even by
the enlightened historian Graetz. Fortunately he left behind him his
_Lebensgeschichte_, among the best of its kind in German literature, in
which, with the frankness of a Rousseau, he described the events of his
short and checkered career.[24]
From this admirable work, in which he neither hides his follies nor
flaunts his talents, we learn that Maimon possessed rare virtues. His
sympathy for the poor, his ready helpfulness even at the sacrifice of
himself, rendered him as uncommon in moral action as in philosophic
speculation. To the English reader a striking parallelism suggests
itself between him and his contemporary Oliver Goldsmith. Both were
afflicted with generosity above their fortunes; both had a "knack at
hoping," which led frequently to their undoing; neither could subscribe
easily to the "decent formalities of rigid virtue"; and, as of the
latter we may also say of the former, in the language of a reviewer, "He
had lights and shadows, virtues and foibles--vices you cannot call them,
be you never so unkind."
As Goldsmith came to London, so came Maimon to Berlin, "without friends,
recommendation, money, or impudence." His only luggage was two
manuscripts: a commentary on the works of Maimuni, whose name he had
adopted, and to whom he paid divine reverence; and a treatise in which
he attempted to rationalize the recondite doctrines of the Cabbala, and
which he always kept by him "as a monument of the struggle of the human
mind after perfection in spite of all hindrances which were put in its
way." The little bundle, which, to the zealot Jewish elders of that
community, seemed sufficient indication that Maimon was tainted with
heresy, and that his intentions were to devote himself to the study of
science and philosophy, proved a great impediment to entering Berlin;
and when, after a long, incredible struggle, he was finally admitted, he
found himself incapable of earning a livelihood. In his childlike
naïveté he was betrayed by the very persons upon whom he relied most.
All this could not deaden his love for knowledge and truth. By chance he
obtained Wolff's _Metaphysics_, and this marked a new epoch in his life.
"Not only the sublime science in itself," says he, "but also the order
and mathematical method of the celebrated author, the precision of his
explanations, the exactness of his reasoning, and the scientific
arrangement of his expositions--all this kindled a new light in my
mind."
So profound a thinker could not for long be a mere pupil. Wolff's
argument _a posteriori_ for the existence of God, in accordance with his
philosophic hobby, the "principle of sufficient reason," displeased him
wholly. A Hebrew letter to Mendelssohn, in which he shook the foundation
of the _Metaphysics_ by means of his irrefutable ontology, won him the
admiration of the Berlin sage, who invited him to become his daily
guest.
Maimon's intellect unfolded from day to day, until, some time
afterwards, he astonished the philosophic world by his great work, _Die
Transcendentale Philosophie_ (Berlin, 1790), in reference to which Kant
wrote to his beloved disciple Marcus Herz: "A mere glance at it enabled
me to recognize its merits, and showed me, that not only had none of my
opponents understood me and the main problem so well, but very few could
claim so much penetration as Herr Maimon in profound inquiries of this
sort." He demolished the prevalent Leibnitzo-Wolffian system in it, and
proved that even the Kantian theory, though irrefutable from a dogmatic
point of view, is exposed to severe attacks from the skeptic's point of
view.
Thenceforth he became a leading figure in philosophic controversy. In
1793 he published _Ueber die Progresse der Philosophie_; in 1794,
_Versuch einer neuen Logik_, and _Die Kategorien des Aristoteles_, and,
three years later, _Kritische Untersuchungen über den menschlichen
Geist_ (Berlin, 1797), wherein he originated a speculative, monistic
idealism, which pervaded not only philosophy, but all sciences during
the first half of the nineteenth century, the system by which Fichte,
Schelling, and Hegel were influenced. According to Bernfeld, he was the
greatest Jewish philosopher since the time of Spinoza, with whose depth
of reasoning he combined an ease and straightforwardness of illustration
characteristic of Benjamin Franklin.[25]
With all this he remained an ardent lover of the Talmud to the last. In
fact, his philosophy is distinctively Jewish. Like Spinoza, he exhibited
the effects of the Cabbala and of rabbinic speculation, with which he
had been familiar from childhood. The honor of the Talmudic sages was
always dear to him, and he never mentioned them without expressing
profound respect. Persecuted though he was by his German coreligionists,
he never bore them a grudge. As a man he loved them as brothers, but as
a philosopher he could not subscribe to their views implicitly. But for
friends and benefactors his affection was unusually strong. With what
love he talks of Mendelssohn in the chapter dedicated to him in his
autobiography, even though "he could not explain the persistency of
Mendelssohn and the Wolffians generally in adhering to their system,
except as a political dodge, and a piece of hypocrisy, by which they
studiously endeavored to descend to the mode of thinking common to the
popular mind!" His devotion to his wife was not diminished even after he
had been compelled to divorce her because of his supposed heretical
proclivities. "When the subject [of his divorce] came up in
conversation, it was easy," says his biographer,[26] "to read in his
face the deep sorrow he felt: his liveliness then faded away sensibly.
By and by he would become perfectly silent, was incapable of further
entertainment, and went home earlier than usual." Of his Russo-Polish
brethren he speaks in the highest terms. He cannot bestow too much
praise on their care for the poor and the sick, and he always hoped once
more to see his native land, to whose king he dedicated his
_Transcendental Philosophy_. "For," says he, "the Polish Jews are,
indeed, for the most part not enlightened by science; their manners and
way of life are still rude, but they are loyal to the religion of their
fathers and to the laws of their country."[27]
It is because I regard him as the greatest Maskil of his time that I
have dwelt on Maimon at such length. Mendelssohn's philosophy, if he had
an original system, has long since passed into oblivion; Maimon's will
be studied as long as Spinoza, Leibnitz, and Kant are in vogue. His
importance to us does not lie in the circumstance that his
autobiography--"that wonderful bit of Autobiography," as George Eliot
speaks of it, or "that curious and rare book," as Dean Milman calls
it--and the pictures drawn of him by Berthold Auerbach and Israel
Zangwill[28] have made him the hero of some of the world's best
biographies and novels. Over and above this, he is the prototype of his
unfortunate countrymen during the days of transition. He embodied the
aspiration, courage, and disappointments of them all, and if, as Carlyle
said, "the history of the world is the history of its great men,"
Maimon's life should be studied by all interested in the Kulturkampf of
the Russo-Polish and of the German Jews in the eighteenth century.
What could he not have accomplished, he to whom Kant and Goethe,
Schiller and Körner paid tributes of unstinted praise, had he not been
doomed to suffer and to starve. Only at the last moment, before he was
silenced forever, was he able to say, _Ich bin ruhig_ ("I am at peace").
Yet, in spite of the difficulties and impediments besetting him at every
step, his promise of greatness and usefulness was not belied. In the
Introduction to his commentary on Maimuni's _Guide to the Perplexed
(Gibe'at ha-Moreh)_, in which he attempted to reconcile his master's
system with that of modern philosophy--even as the master had tried to
reconcile Judaism with Aristotelianism--he gave a brief sketch of the
development of modern thought. This part of his work was assiduously
studied by his compatriots. Among his unpublished writings was found a
work on mathematical physics, _Ta'alumot Hokmah_, and in his Talmudic
treatise, _Heshek Shelomoh_, he inserted a dissertation, _Ma'aseh
Hosheb_, on arithmetic, like a skilful physician putting a healing,
though to some it may appear a repelling, balm into a delicious,
attractive capsule.
The story of Maimon, as I have said, is the story of many of the
peripatetic apostles of Haskalah, and his experience was more or less
also theirs. Issachar Falkensohn Behr (or Bär Falkensohn, 1746-1796?),
without funds, friends, or rudimentary knowledge of the subjects
necessary for admission into a public school, left his native city of
Zamosez with the determination to enter the university of "Little
Berlin," as Königsberg was called. Too poor to carry out his plan, he
tramped to Berlin. Through the influence of his relatives and
countrymen, Israel Moses Halevi and Daniel Jaffe, he was introduced to
Mendelssohn, and was enabled to devote himself systematically to the
study of German, the alphabet of which he had learned from Wolff's
treatise on mathematics, and to French, Latin, physics, philosophy, and
medicine. In a very short time he mastered them all, especially German.
His _Gedichte eines polnischen Juden_ (Mitau and Leipsic, 1772) caused
no little stir among the poets. Lessing and Goethe, close observers of
symptoms of enlightenment among the Jews, expressed themselves
differently as to the real merit of the collection; but both concurred
with Boie, who, writing to Knebel, the friend of Goethe, remarked
concerning them, "You are right; the Jewish nation promises much after
it is once awakened."[29]
For one reason or another we find that some Slavonic Jewish youths
preferred other places to Berlin for the pursuit of their studies. Such
were Benjamin Wolf Günzberg and Jacob Liboschüts. The former was
probably the only Jew at the Göttingen University. It was from there
that he inquired of Jacob Emden "whether it was permissible to dissect
on the Sabbath," and his thesis for the doctor's degree was _De medica
ex Talmudicis illustrata_ (Göttingen, 1743).[30] Liboschüts studied at
the University of Halle. After graduation, finding that as a Jew he
could not settle in St. Petersburg, he established himself in Vilna,
where he became celebrated as a diplomat, philanthropist, and, more
especially, expert physician. When Professor Frank was asked who would
take care of the public health in his absence, he is reported to have
said, _Deus et Judaeus_, "God and the Jew" [Liboschüts]!
In their deep-rooted love for learning, they sometimes ventured even
beyond the German boundaries, into countries whose language and customs
had little in common with theirs. Padua continued to be the resort of
Russo-Polish Jews that it had been before 1648. Moses Hayyim Luzzatto
found an ardent admirer and zealous propagandist of his principles in
the young medical student Jekuthiel Gordon (ab. 1729), who wrote
concerning his master to friends in Vienna and Vilna.[31] Judah Halevi
Hurwitz (d. 1797), whose work _'Ammude Bet Yehudah_ (Amsterdam, 1765)
was highly recommended by Mendelssohn and Wessely, was a graduate of the
same famous institution. In addition to his medical and philosophic
attainments, he wrote a number of poems, and he was among the first to
translate fables from German into Hebrew.[32]
The story of Zalkind Hurwitz (1740-1812), "le fameux," as he was called
by a French writer, is interesting. Starting, as usual, by going to
Berlin, and succeeding, as usual, in gaining the friendship of
Mendelssohn, he then visited Nancy, Metz, and Strasburg, and finally
settled in Paris. Like Doctor Behr, he had to resort to peddling as a
means for a livelihood. The rudiments of French he acquired from any
book he chanced to obtain. Nevertheless, he soon became proficient in
the language of his adopted country, and wrote his excellent _Apologie
des juifs_, which, crowned by the Academy of Metz and quoted by
Mirabeau, was largely instrumental in removing the disabilities of the
Jews in France. Clermont-Tonnerre, the advocate of Jewish emancipation,
said of him, _Le juif polonais seul avait parlé en philosophe_. He was
suggested as a member of the Sanhedrin convoked by Napoleon in 1807.
Though for some reason he never enjoyed the honor of membership in it,
he was, nevertheless, the ruling spirit in the august assembly, and
later generations have paid him the homage he deserves.[33]
Where Hurwitz failed, another of his countrymen was to succeed. Judah
Litvack (1776-1836) removed from Berlin to Amsterdam, became prominent
among the Dutch mathematicians, and wrote a Dutch work, _Verhandeling
over de Profgetallen Gen. ii_ (Amsterdam, 1817), which appeared in a
second edition four years after the first. The author was elected a
member of the Mathesis Artium Genetrix Society, and appointed one of the
deputation sent to the Sanhedrin (February 12, 1807), before which he
delivered a discourse in the German language.
The "distant isles of the sea," the British Islands, Russo-Polish Jews
seem to have frequented ever since the Restoration, probably
contemporaneously with the settlement of the Spanish Jews. The famous
mystic Hayyim Samuel Jacob Falk, one of the many Baal-Shems who
flourished in Podolia at the beginning of the eighteenth century,
settled in London before 1750, and became the subject of many wonder
stories. Sussman Shesnovzi, apparently a countryman of his, describes
him, in a letter to Jacob Emden, as "standing alone in his generation by
reason of his knowledge of holy mysteries." That this was the opinion of
many and prominent personages may be inferred from the fact that among
his callers were such distinguished visitors as the Marchese de Crona,
Baron de Neuhoff, Prince Czartorisky, and the Duke of Orleans. The
confidence of such as these brought Falk a considerable fortune, a large
part of which he bequeathed to a charity fund, the interest of which the
overseers of the United Synagogue still distribute annually among the
poor.[34] Shortly before "Doctor" Falk's death (1782), there settled in
London Phinehas Phillips of Krotoschin, the founder of the Phillips
family, which has furnished two Lord Mayors to the city of London.
It was not merely because of its business facilities that England
appealed to the Slavonic Jews. Baruch Shklover, or Schick (1740-1812),
went thither to study medicine, and it was from English literature that
he selected the material for his _Keneh ha-Middah_ (Prague, 1784;
Shklov, 1793), on trigonometry. It would appear that the first Hebrew
book, _Toledot Ya'akob_, printed for a Jew in England, was, as the name
of the author, Eisenstadt, suggests, that of a Slavonic Jew. Although a
silversmith by profession, Israel Lyons (d. 1770) was appointed teacher
of Hebrew at the University of Cambridge. He acquired repute as a Hebrew
scholar, and published, in 1757, the _Scholar's Instructor_, or _Hebrew
Grammar_ (4th ed., 1823), and in 1768 a treatise printed by the
Cambridge Press, _Observations and Inquiries Relating to Various Parts
of Scripture History_. In the same chosen field labored Hyman Hurwitz
(1770-1844), the friend of Coleridge, who founded the Highgate Academy
(1799), and wrote an _Introduction to Hebrew Grammar_, _Vindica
Hebraica_, and _Hebrew Tales_, which were translated into various
languages. He finally became professor of Hebrew in University College,
London.
A younger contemporary of Abrahamson, the Jewish German medallist, was
Solomon (Yom Tob) Bennett (1780-1841), the engraver of Polotsk, who
spent a number of years at Copenhagen and Berlin in perfecting himself
in his art. Among his works is a highly praised bas-relief of Frederick
II, which was much admired by the professors of the Academy. An ardent
lover of liberty, of which there was little more in Germany at that time
than in Russia, he left for England, where he spent the remaining years
of his life, in Bristol. Besides being an artist and an engraver he was
a profound theologian, anxious to defend the cause of Judaism against
enemies within and without. The enemy within he attacked in his cutting
criticism of Solomon Cohen's _Rudiments of Religion_, and the enemy
outside, in his other work, _The Constancy of Israel_ (_Nezah Yisraël_,
London, 1809). He also wrote expositions on many important Biblical
topics, such as sacrifices (1815) and the Temple (1824). Having pointed
out the defects of the Authorized Version (1834), he was ambitious of
publishing a complete revised translation of the Bible. Specimens
appeared in 1841. Death intervened and frustrated his plans. As Schick
was the first Jew to translate from English into Hebrew, so Bennett was
the first after Manasseh ben Israel to write in English in behalf of his
people.[35]
If the contributions of Slavonic Jews to Latin, German, French, Dutch,
and English literature were not less considerable at that time than
those of the Jews residing in the countries where these languages were
respectively used as media, they excelled them in Hebrew literature. In
the renaissance of the holy tongue, they played the most important part
from the first. The striving for knowledge, not for the purpose of
obtaining a coveted privilege, but for its own sake, became an
irresistible passion, and it was accompanied by an unquenchable desire
to disseminate knowledge among the masses, to make learning and wisdom
common property. The Hebrew language being the best vehicle for the
purpose, it was soon impressed into the service of Haskalah. The pioneer
Maskilim learned to handle it with ease and clearness that would do
credit to a modern writer in a much more developed European language.
From the middle of the fifteenth to the latter part of the eighteenth
century, Hebrew literature consisted, if a few scattered books on
philosophy, mostly translations from the Arabic, are excepted, mainly of
Talmudic disquisitions, written in the rabbinic dialect and in a
euphuistic style. Besides the great Maimuni, there were few able or
willing to write Hebrew "as she should be spoke." The early German
Maskilim, in trying to escape the Scylla of Rabbinism, fell victims to
the Charybdis of Germanism. They possessed originality neither of style
nor of sentiment, neither of rhyme nor of reason. Hebrew poetry was an
adaptation of current German poetry. The very best the period produced,
the _Mosaïde_ of Wessely, was influenced by and largely an imitation of
Klopstock and others. Like English classic poetry, it is pretty in form
but poor in spirit. The element of nationality, or distinctiveness, the
life-giving and soul-uplifting element in all poetry, as Delitzsch
justly maintains it to be, was lacking in the German Maskilim, anxious
for naturalization as they were. It was the Slavonic Maskilim who
mastered Hebrew in its purity, as it had not been mastered since the day
of Judah Halevi. In those days of transition the diligent student can
find, in germ, what was later to develop into the resplendent poetical
flowers produced by the Lebensohns, the Gordons, Dolitzky, Schapiro,
Mane, and Bialik.
The Slavonic contributors to the Meassef, the first Hebrew literary
periodical (1784-1811), were not conspicuous in number, but if quality
can compensate for quantity, they made up for it by the value of their
articles. Dubno and Maimon enriched the early issues, the one with
poetry, the other with philosophy; and when it began to struggle for its
existence, and was on the point of giving up the ghost, Shalom Cohen
(1772-1845) came to the rescue, and, as editor, prolonged its existence
by a few years. Among the best articles in the Meassef are those of
Isaac Halevi Satanov (1733-1805). This "conglomeration of contrasts,"
whom Delitzsch regards as the restorer of Hebrew poetry to its primitive
beauty and purity, was the embodiment of the period in which he lived.
"He was," we are told, "a thorough master of Jewish traditional lore,
and at the same time a most advanced thinker, a profound physicist, and
an inspired poet; a master of the old school and at the same time the
founder of the new school, the national-classical, of Hebrew poetry."
His pure and precise style, his good-natured, Horace-like, delicate, yet
unmistakable, humor, he showed in a series of books bearing the name of
Asaf, which still must be counted among the gems of Hebrew
literature.[36]
Satanov was greatly in favor of expanding the Hebrew language, but the
first to borrow expressions from the Talmud literature or coin words of
his own was Mendel Levin, also of Satanov, Podolia (1741-1819), the
friend of Mendelssohn while in Berlin, the inspirer of Perl and Krochmal
while in Brody, the companion of Zeitlin and Schick while in Mohilev.
The Meassefim, the name generally applied to all who participated in the
publication of the Meassef, were shocked by what they regarded a
profanation of the sacred tongue. Their idea was that Hebrew was to be
utilized as a means of introducing Western civilization. Afterwards it
was to be relegated once more to the holy Ark. To Levin Hebrew had a far
higher significance. Not only should Western civilization be introduced
into Jewry through its means, but Hebrew itself should be so perfected
as to take a place by the side of the more modern and cultivated
languages. It should find adequate expressions for the new thoughts and
ideas which the new learning would introduce into it directly or
indirectly. The medieval translations from the Arabic should be
retranslated into the new Hebrew, he held, and he furnished an example
by recasting the first part of Maimuni's _Moreh Nebukim_. His modernized
version, lucid and fluent, printed alongside of Ibn Tibbon's, presents a
striking contrast to the stiffness and obscurity of the Provençal
scholar's. Levin was also the first to write in the Yiddish, or
Judeo-German, dialect, for the instruction of the masses, which made him
the butt of more than one satire. But what was generally regarded as a
degrading task was fraught with the greatest consequences to the
Haskalah. To this day Yiddish has continued an important medium for
disseminating culture among Russian Jews, both in the Old World and in
the New.[37]
The century remarkable among other things for encyclopedia
enterprises,--_Chambers' Encyclopedia_ in England, the _Universal
Lexicon_ in Germany, and that wonderful and monumental work, the
_Encyclopédie_ in France--saw, before its close, a similar attempt, in
miniature, in Hebrew and by a Slavonic Maskil. Whether the Hebrew
encyclopedist was influenced by the example of Dr. Tobias Cohn's
_Ma'aseh Tobiah_ mentioned above, or was unconsciously imbued with the
prevailing tendency of the times, it is impossible to tell. In any
event, he resorted to the same means, and presented the Jewish world
with a volume containing a little of every science known, under the
innocent name _The Book of the Covenant_ (_Sefer ha-Berit_, Brünn,
1797).
The book appeared anonymously. This, the author assures us, was due not
to humbleness of spirit, but to a vow. His diligence and constant
application had greatly impaired his eyes. He vowed that if God restored
his sight, and enabled him to finish his task, he would publish the book
without disclosing his authorship. God hearkened unto his prayers, and
the work was soon completed. But an unforeseen trouble arose. His book
was ascribed "by some to the sage of Berlin, by others to the Gaon of
Vilna, and by many to the united efforts of a coterie of scholars, for
it could not be believed that so many and diverse sciences could be
mastered by one person." Moreover, the author was censured for being
afraid to come out openly and boldly as a champion of Haskalah.[38] In
spite of obstacles and strictures, the book met with success surpassing
the author's expectations. It found its way not only into Russia,
Poland, and Germany, but even into France, Italy, England, Holland, and
Palestine. An edition of two thousand copies was entirely exhausted,
unusual at a time when books were costly and money was scarce, and
another edition was issued. What Phinehas Elijah (Hurwitz) of Vilna had
sown in tears, he lived to reap in joy.
There was a crying need in Russia for a work of the sort. In Germany the
very Government encouraged organizations and publications aiming at
enlightenment. Accordingly, a Society for the Promotion of the Good and
the Noble was started, and the Meassef was published. In Russo-Poland
not even a Hebrew printing-press was permitted, and certainly no
periodical publications would have been tolerated. Phinehas Elijah,
therefore, grasped the opportunity, and showed himself equal to it. His
aim was, like that of the French encyclopedists, to lead his readers
"through nature to God." He gives an account of the various sciences,
natural and philosophical, as a prolegomenon to the study of theology,
even of the mystic teachings of Vital's _Gates of Holiness_. Withal he
evinces a sound intellect and refined, if rudimentary, taste. He decries
the "ancestor worship" that rendered the Jew of his day a fossil
specimen of an extinct species. The present is superior to the past, "a
dwarf on a giant's shoulder seeth farther than doth the giant himself."
He ridicules the base and degrading habit of dedicating books to
"benefactors, friends, lovers, parents, men, or women." His work was
written for the glory of God, and he dedicates it to eternal,
all-conquering truth.[39]
All these Maskilim, so many hands reaching out into the light, were both
the cause and the consequence of the longing for enlightenment
characteristic at all times of the Slavonic Jew. Graetz and his
followers among the latter-day Maskilim delighted in calling them "they
that walk in darkness." Facts, however, prove that at no time before
Nicholas I was education per se regarded with the least suspicion,
though the Talmud was given the preference. As in the pre-Haskalah
period, the greatest Talmudists deemed it a sacred duty to perfect
themselves in some branch of secular science. When, in 1710, a terrible
plague broke out in his native town, Rabbi Jonathan of Risenci (Grodno)
vowed that, "if he were spared, he would disseminate a knowledge of
astronomy among his countrymen." To fulfil the vow he went to Germany
(1725), where, though blind, he devoted himself assiduously first to the
acquisition of astronomy, then to writing on it.[40] Baruch Yavan of
Volhynia, who more than any one exposed the impostures of Jacob Frank,
"spoke and wrote Hebrew, Polish, German, and probably French," and his
accomplishments and address won him the admiration of Count Brühl, the
virtual ruler of Poland, and the favor of the highest officials at St.
Petersburg. His associate in the righteous fight, Bima Speir of Mohilev,
was also possessed of a thorough command of the language of Russia, and
was well posted in its literature, history, and politics. The Pinczovs,
descendants of Rabbi Polack, connected with the most eminent rabbinical
families, and themselves famous for piety and erudition, produced many
works on mathematics and philosophy. Mendelssohn's translation of the
Pentateuch was at first hailed with joy, and was recommended by the most
zealous rabbis. Doctor Hurwitz of Vilna did not hesitate to dedicate his
_'Ammude Bet Yehudah_ to Wessely, who was more popular in Russo-Poland
than in Germany. The whole edition of his _Yen Lebanon_, which fell flat
in the latter country, though offered gratis, was sold when introduced
into the former.[41] Joseph Pesseles' correspondence concerning Dubno,
with David Friedländer, the disciple of Mendelssohn (1773), proves the
high esteem in which the liberal-minded savants of Berlin were held in
Russia. The rabbis of Brest, Slutsk, and Lublin gave laudatory
recommendations to Judah Löb Margolioth's popular works of natural
science, which form a little encyclopedia by themselves. Margolioth was
the grandson of Mordecai Jaffe, himself rabbi successively at Busnov,
Szebrszyn, Polotsk, Lesla, and Frankfort-on-the-Oder (d. 1811). The
writings of Baruch Schick of Shklov, referred to above, were accorded
the same welcome. His translation of Euclid and his treatises on
trigonometry, astronomy (_'Ammude ha-Shamayim_), and anatomy (_Tiferet
Adam_) won the admiration of rabbis as well as laymen. Epitaphs of the
day contain the statement that the deceased was not only "at home in all
the chambers of the Torah," but also in "philosophy and the seven
sciences." And this, exaggerated though it may be, must be seen to
contain a kernel of the truth, when we recall that among Maimon's
intimate friends was the rabbi of Kletzk, Lithuania; that in the humble
dwelling of his father there were works on historical, astronomical, and
philosophical subjects; that the chief rabbi of a neighboring town,
Rabbi Samson of Slonim, who, according to Fünn, "had in his youth lived
for a while in Germany, learned the German language there, and made
himself acquainted in some measure with the sciences," continued his
study of the sciences, and soon collected a fair library of German
books.[42] Saadia, Bahya, Halevi, Ibn Ezra, Crescas, Bedersi, Levi ben
Gerson (whom Goldenthal calls the Hebrew Kant), Albo, Abarbanel, and
others whose works deserve a high place in the history of Jewish
philosophy, were on the whole fairly represented in the libraries, and
diligently studied in the numerous yeshibot and batte midrashim.
Thus the enlightenment which dawned upon France, Germany, and England
cast a glow even on the Slavonic Jews, despite the Chinese wall of
disabilities that hemmed them in. Unfortunately, this only helped to
render them dissatisfied with their wretched lot, without affording them
the means of ameliorating it. While the Jews in Western Europe profited
and were encouraged by the example of their Christian neighbors; while,
in addition to their innate thirst for learning, they had everywhere
else political and civil preferments to look forward to, in Russo-Poland
not only were such outside stimuli absent, but the Slavonic Jews had to
struggle against obstacles and hindrances at every step. No such heaven
on earth could be dreamed of there. The country was still in a most
barbarous state. Those who wished to perfect themselves in any of the
sciences had to leave home and all and go to a foreign land, and had to
study, as they were bidden to study the Talmud, "lishmah," that is, for
its own sake. This is the distinguishing feature between the German and
Slavonic Maskilim during the eighteenth century. The cry of the former
was, "Become learned, lest the nations say we are not civilized and deny
us the wealth, respect, and especially the equality we covet!" The
latter were humbly seeking after the truth, either because they could
better elucidate the Talmud, or because, as they held, it was _their_
truth, of which the nations had deprived them during their long
exile.[43] They were unlike their German brethren in another respect.
Almost all of them were "self-made men," autodidacts in the truest
sense. Lacking the advantages of secular schools, they culled their
first information from scanty, antiquated Hebrew translations. Maimon
learned the Roman alphabet from the transliteration of the titles on the
fly-leaves of some Talmudic tracts; Doctor Behr, from Wolff's
_Mathematics_. But no sooner was the impetus given than it was followed
by an insatiable craving for more and more of the intellectual manna,
for a wider and wider horizon. "Look," says Wessely, "look at our
Russian and Polish brethren who immigrate hither, men great in Torah,
yet admirers of the sciences, which, without the guiding help of
teachers, they all master to such perfection as to surpass even a
Gentile sage!"[44] Such self-education was, of course, not without
unfavorable results. Never having enjoyed the advantage of a systematic
elementary training, the enthusiasts sometimes lacked the very rudiments
of knowledge, though engaged in the profoundest speculations of
philosophy. "As our mothers in Egypt gave birth to their children before
the mid-wife came," writes Pinsker somewhat later,[45] "even so it is
with the intellectual products of our brethren: before one becomes
acquainted with the grammar of a language, he masters its classic and
scientific literature!"
Steadily though slowly, brighter, if not better, days were coming.
"Thought once awakened shall not again slumber." As Carlyle says of the
French of that period, it became clear for the first time to the
upturned eyes of the Jews, "that Thought has actually a kind of
existence in other kingdoms [than the Talmud]; that some glimmerings of
civilization had dawned here and there on the human species." They begin
to try all things; they visit Germany, France, Denmark, Holland, even
England; learn their literatures, study in their universities, and
contribute their quota to the apologetic, controversial, scientific, and
philosophic investigations "with a candor and real love of improvement
which give the best omens of a still higher success." Fortune, indeed,
has cast them also into a cavern, and they are groping around darkly.
But this prisoner, too, is a giant, and he will, at length, burst forth
as a giant into the light of day.
(Notes, pp. 310-314.)